Free A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard Page B

thought to myself, I never see anyone, though, but I didn’t interrupt because it always ended with why he was right and I was wrong. So I tore out the corners with my name and never wrote my real name on anything again until 2009.





























 
    Rusty
     
    Rusty was a cat that my grandma got for me when I was a baby. Rusty was around when I was growing up and living with mom, Aunt Tina, and Grandma Ninny and Grandpa Poppy. He was an orange tabby. He was an outside cat, so when me and my mom got our first apartment together I wasn’t able to bring him with me, but luckily we lived about five minutes from my grandparents’ house, so I was able to visit frequently. Whenever I would visit, all I would have to do is call out his name and he would come running to me no matter where he was in the neighborhood. I miss my Rusty kitty. When we moved to Tahoe, I never got to see him again.
    Shortly after that last entry in Eclipse’s Journal, Phillip moved me back to the studio room again. He had me pack up all the things I had in my tent in boxes and said that he was going to giveEclipse to his aunt Celia. For what reason? I do not know. He was a very paranoid man. He said his aunt Celia absolutely adored cats and fed all the strays in her neighborhood. He said she would take very good care of Eclipse. And said if things changed in the future, maybe I could see her again one day. I never saw her again.
    Looking back on that, I don’t really think they spent two hundred dollars on a cat. I must have really needed to believe something good about them. I learned that by being “good” and not complaining a lot I received more freedoms along the way. It didn’t usually matter what I needed. It was all about Phillip, his needs, and what he wanted. He got rid of Eclipse while he was on a “run.” The “run” lasted for days, and when I was sent back “next door” Eclipse was gone. I learned never to ask questions because the answers never made me feel any better. It seemed every argument ended up with me wrong and him right. He had all the power.
    I was moved back into the studio for a couple of weeks, not sure when. And then it was back “next door.” I have no idea what his reasoning was for moving me back and forth. I didn’t ask. I just did what I was told. I don’t know what happened to Eclipse. It would be four years before I got another cat.

Learning I Was Pregnant

     
    E aster Sunday, 1994. I have been moved back to the studio.
    Phillip said that he thought he had heard someone talking about police in the neighborhood and thought I would be better protected in the semi-soundproof studio. He said I had to be extra quiet when I walked around. He removed the wall that used to separate the mixing room from the music room. Now it is one big room. I have a new pallet on the floor in the back corner. There is a partition to give me a feeling of privacy. It’s Easter and we have been spending the whole day together. Nancy, Phillip, and I. Phillip and Nancy have a bed in middle of the room. It is a mattress with no box spring. We have been watching
The Ten Commandments
with Charlton Heston and eating a ham dinner that Phillip’s mother Pat made. They both tell me to close my eyes. When I open, I see an Easter basket. The basket is filledwith candy and it also has two little Easter bunnies, a boy and a girl. I tell them thank you and that I love it. Phillip says there is something that he needs to talk to me about. He says he and Nancy have been watching me lately and noticed that I’d been putting on weight and waddling instead of walking. I said I know. I told them I did feel bigger and that I didn’t realize I was walking funny. I told them my stomach was hurting a lot, too. They said, “We think you may be pregnant.” I am stunned and scared. What was going to happen to me? What was going to happen to the baby? I knew babies were delivered in a hospital. After all, that was where my mom had